Climate Education Working Group

The Climate Change Education Working Group is a new intitative by the Education Committee. Check back to watch the development of this space. Register in the ESIP wiki and click on the "watch" tab to be notified of ongoing events.

Background

During the September 2010 telcon the ESIP Education committee unanimously agreed to form a Climate Change Education Working Group (CCEWG) to support members climate education initiatives such as TERC's CLEAN-NE and CLEAN Pathway projects, several NASA GCCE projects, and the NOAA Climate Stewards program.
This initiative commenced at the 2011 Winter meeting.

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? How do we frame the education discussion? Climate change is seen as a narrow issue. Interdisciplinarity is critically important. Also important is valuing human capital, in addition to grant-based financial capital. Building corporate responsibility. Don't be afraid of science; don't be afraid of not knowing. Fear of the scientist: Creates walls between corporate, community elements and science-based outreach organizations. Informal vs. formal education and educators: there seems to be an emphasis on the formal.

Tamara Ledley:

Proposal: Scientific reviews of educational resources, curricular materials. Also, analysis of what we can do to make such reviews consistent, systemic, sustainable over time. “Vetting”.

Also, materials to go along with them, to aid understanding, perhaps to de-politicize the science.

Proposal: Uber-interface with full capability of federal government to help people find centers of federal agencies (such as forestry, EPA, NOAA, NASA, USDA, etc.) for collaboration.

Becky Reid:

What about an educational piece or workshop about where to find partners for collaboration? Uber interface is difficult to achieve during a year.

John Moore:

National registry for teachers, scientists (National Lab Network, nationallabnetwork.org) already being pushed by Obama, government. Teachers, scientists, etc can post projects that they need specialists for, find such specialists in their region. See if we can make use of that.

Amanda Horwitz:

A lobby day. Scientists, specialists organizing in DC to talk to politicians. Climate Change ambassadors. “We're not here to support any particular bill, we're just here to talk about climate science.”

Ed Geary:

Bring data together to help regular people understand. Climate change town halls. Who are the ESIP groups doing things in New Mexico, other local areas?

Tamara Ledley:

Education for policymakers is very important.

Frank Niepold:

Educating constituents helps their develop political will for comprehensive policy change.

Tamara Ledley:

Problem for ESIP education panel: Identify the varying specific skillsets of the other scientists within the organization, interest them in involvement with educational oversight and outreach.

Tom Moritz:

Comprehensively lighter-weight approach the review process. Many leading climate change scientists don't have a lot of time.

Becky Reid:

One way to engage other scientists in the educational field is to show them the results of the vetted resources and activities. If they are effective, if students are engaged, if it's good science, then the others may be more engaged, excited.

Frank Niepold:

The system is important. How do we create a system to ensure that these materials are accurate and stay accurate in the real world of dynamic scientific inquiry and change?

Nina Jackson:

Look at the current grants and see which ones we can sustain.

Oct 27th Telcon recap:

Telcon participants decided that a moderated round table would be a good format for the CCEWG bellwether gathering which will take place on the afternoon of Tuesday, January 4th 2011. Invitations will go out to experts from several ESIP member organizations, including but not limited to NASA, NOAA, GLOBE, EPA, NSF, CLN and GLOBE.

To focus and scope the discussion we will be developing questions prior to the winter meeting via the ESIP Education listserve, ensuing telcons, and this Wiki. ESIP members are encouraged to propose discussion topics and pre-workshop focus questions below.

Nov 18th Telcon update:

This event will kick-off with a 90 minute panel-led town hall meeting to establish common ground around what our mission might encompass. We currently have confirmation from Lin Chambers (NASA GCCE), Nina Jackson (NOAA/NESDIS), Ed Geary (GLOBE), Dave Campbell (NSF), LuAnn Dahlman (NOAA Climate Program Office) and Tamara Ledley (Climate Literacy Network), with other invitations pending.

Expert panel members have been asked to consider the following questions:

1) What do you see as the greatest challenge to climate change education?

2) There are two areas that input from a broad spectrum of climate scientists is needed. 1) The first is to provide expert scientific review of educational materials addressing climate science. As climate science is such an interdisciplinary topic this requires access to a very wide range of expertise. The ESIP Federation - through its wide diversity in expertise in Earth science is positioned to be able provide this expert scientific review by identifying the appropriate members. This is a current need of the CLEAN Pathway project. 2) Another area is to provide input in the development of climate change education programs around the country that address the specific needs of that region they are being developed for. Through partnerships with funded projects or with climate change education proposals the ESIP Federation could play a role in guiding these projects and providing the specific scientific expertise needed. There are some potential partnerships that we could pursue now. - Tamara Ledley

3) Climate Literacy Network - how might the CCEWG and the ESIP Federation be more involved (contribute to and take advantage of). - Tamara Ledley